Eli Pariser

Eli Pariser

Eli Pariser makes a great case against the filtering of information on the internet by service providers such as Facebook and Google. The filtering algorithms are designed to personalize the information that each individual receives whenever they are interacting with the internet. I have witnessed information filtering on many occasions during my interaction with social media and the internet in general. For example, Facebook and google are very quick to provide information tailored to your past search history and location. Indeed, the information that I see on my Facebook page when in Hong Kong is very different from the information I receive when I am in the United States.

I remember how easy it was to follow the recent Hong Kong protest when I was in Hong Kong because events related to the protest flooded my Facebook page whenever I opened my profile. Sometimes it even irritating because I had to sort through this kind of information when I was interested in other news from the US. Essentially, my Google search results are very much linked to the information I was browsing previously. For example, a few days ago, I searched for the impeachment news on google before crossing over to China News. I was surprised to find the search results reporting China’s view on the impeachment when all I was interested in was the general news about what was going on over there.

Notwithstanding, I, to some extent, consider the internet filters appropriate. There is a lot of information on the internet such that it would take a lot of time to sort out what one is looking for because much of it could be irrelevant. I think the personalization of the filters makes our work easier on the internet because it helps us to get the relevant information we seek quite speedily. However, I think it would be more appropriate if the internet service providers gave us the option of choosing what the filters should encode while sorting out what to show us as articulated by Mr. Pariser.